Colossians 3.12-17, Luke 2.41-52
First Sunday of Christmas, 30 December 2018
Austwick, United Service
Today let us celebrate the obsessive behaviour of twelve year-old boys. Let us give thanks for the propensities of the pre-teen male.
We all know twelve year-old boys. Though we don’t see much of them. They make their excuses at the end of the family Christmas meal and disappear into their room for a six-hour session of internet gaming, they bury their heads in a book in the corner while the family party goes on all around them, they go out to meet their friends to put their new bikes through their paces.
Some of us have been twelve year-old boys, others of us have lived with them, and so we know what they’re like - they’re people of passion, their passions often fixed very clearly in one particular direction, a hobby or interest which they spend so much time with, strengthening and deepening their knowledge and skill in it. They’re great people to buy presents for, because you know exactly the thing they’re most interested in.
For one boy it will be the train set - constantly revising and expanding the track, the layout, the rolling stock, spending all his pocket money on engines and accessories, spending all his time poring over railway modeller magazines and on internet railway hobbyist forums contributing to discussions on the finer points of some detail, gaining more and more arcane knowledge of his subject day by day. For another boy it will be kicking a football around with friends, or collecting coins, or birdwatching or...
The interests vary, but the passion and the intensity is the same. Sir Bradley Wiggins told a reporter, "At 12 I told my art teacher, I’m going to be Olympic champion, I’m going to wear the yellow jersey in the Tour." [1] There is the young man’s spirit that each of us should nurture and never lose - a spirit of curiosity, a spirit of dedication to discovery, a spirit of determination to grow in knowledge and insight and skill.
Sometimes we are infuriated by the obsessions of twelve year-old boys - because their passions take them away from us, they stop them doing their homework or tidying their room or spending any quality time with us at all. But we acknowledge how their obsessions can positively educate them, socialise and mature them, develop wisdom, and in some cases, can set them up for life.
In my Liverpool housing estate parish, Croxteth, a young man was constantly in trouble with the staff at De La Salle Secondary School because he was never there - he was always up the road at the sports centre kicking a football around with older boys. His family hardly saw him for the same reason - though they knew where they could find him, around the corner practicing his considerable soccer skills beneath an end-of-terrace wall sign which read NO BALL GAMES. And in fact his family fully supported him in developing his skills further than any of them could have originally imagined or wished for. His name was Wayne Rooney. [2]
Rooney, now in the twilight of his playing career is more and more a mentor to youngsters coming into the game; and so the obsessions of young men can lead them in later life to excite, encourage and guide others. I’m remembering my late friend and mentor Jim Hart who spent his teenage years in the early 1950s cycling through much of the country, in all sorts of weathers, often riding through the night with no lights, driven by an urge to explore. In adulthood Jim established the Hunts Cross Cycling Group, through which he shared his passions with another generation of boys, some of whom came to regard Jim as a key role model in their lives. [3]
The twelve year-old Jesus was preoccupied with learning; learning from the teachers in the temple the ways of God. This was no solitary task, for it involved him in sitting among them, listening and asking them questions. And this was no selfish task, for the consequences of it were a young man growing almost visibly in wisdom, and wisdom is a thing which is shared to the benefit of all. The adults who shared their time with him ‘were amazed at his understanding and his answers’.
His parents must have been used to Jesus spending time with others, because on their way home from Jerusalem it took them a day to notice he was missing; they were anxious about him then, and they couldn’t quite understand why he had done what he did, nor the terse way in which he explained his actions to them. But after he returned home and was obedient to them, Mary, being Mary, ‘treasured these things in her heart’. And watched Jesus grow ‘in divine and human favour’.
So today let us celebrate the obsessive behaviour of the twelve year-old Jesus. Let us give thanks for the propensities of that particular pre-teen male. Because he shows us how to live towards others and towards God. He encourages us to cultivate within ourselves a spirit of curiosity, of dedication to discovery; a determination to grow in knowledge and insight and skill, an urge to develop in wisdom and maturity.
You know, our society has a bad habit of belittling young people and their ways, rather than taking an interest in those things which interest them, rather than making ourselves available to them as people who can take their questions seriously, engage in speculation with them.
We have a bad habit of mocking those who attach themselves singlemindledly to a subject and let it define them - not least those young men who spend all their time at computer keyboards. And yet when we consider Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and the emergence from their bedrooms to their boardrooms of thousands of other youthful computer pioneers we have to accept the odd truth that: the geek shall inherit the earth. What can we learn from them? How can we add to their understanding?
And one of our society’s worst habits, particularly among religious people, is the way that we shy away from discussing God together: even suggesting that makes me feel that I’m crossing some sort of taboo boundary.
Thank God that Jesus was born and raised a Jew. For Judaism is a faith which people develop primarily in conversation - about God - with each other. God is an open subject to be discussed with others, and we grow in maturity together through having those conversations about how the scriptures relate to our lives. ‘Judaism values debate and does not stifle it’. [4]
This week the Israeli writer Amos Oz died aged 79. Fascinating to read that this man, who became Israel’s best known literary voice, from his youth developed what he called a “deep love” for “one of the greatest Jews who ever lived” - Jesus Christ. As a teenager on a kibbutz, Amos Oz became enchanted by “his poetry, his humour, his compassion, his warmth, his simplicity,” he said. “I realised that unless I read the gospels, I would never have access to Renaissance art, to the music of Bach or the novels of Dostoevsky. So in the evenings, when the other boys went to play basketball or chase girls – I had no chance in either – I found my comfort in Jesus.” [5]
As we consider those adults around Amos Oz who would have helped him nourish his interest in Jesus, let us also thank God for those grown-ups who welcomed the young man Jesus into their company to engage in their theological discussions with them: without their nurture of him, how would the young Jesus have grown towards manhood? They too, are examples to us.
I think that some of the best times Christians have are in small groups which meet to look at scripture together and bring our our own experiences and questions to open conversations about it. When we do this we don’t always found the definitive answers, but exploring the questions together has been very good. The church should be a place which welcomes discussion, which cultivates curiosity and encourages questions about God. It’s an aim of mine to get some of these sorts of conversations going in 2019.
So this coming year, let us celebrate the young and the singleminded, and those of every age who are determined to grow in understanding and wisdom. Let us be among them. Let us encourage them. And let us determine to explore our faith, more deeply and more keenly, together, as Jesus and the temple teachers did.
Notes
Previously preached in Devon in 2012 and Somerset in 2015.
[1] Hattenstone, Simon, "Bradley Wiggins: 'Kids from Kilburn aren't supposed to win the Tour'". guardian.co.uk, 2 November 2012.
[2] Boy on Bicycle, Man in Boats, my blog entry at johndavies.org, Friday, September 15, 2006. I intend to publish Jim’s cycling memoirs at some future date, to honour the man.
[3] Wikipedia, reports that Rooney joined the Everton youth team at nine years old, so by twelve he was well on the road to professional flourishing.
[4] Conversation and debate in Jewish culture, from myjewishlearning.com.
[5] Julia Pascal, Amos Oz Obituary, Guardian, 28 December 2018; Jonathan Freedland, Interview. Amos Oz: ‘I love Israel, but I don’t like it very much’, Guardian Books, 23 September 2016.
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